I had a client once who was particularly proud of her determination. She was someone who kept on going come what may. You know the old saying: “If you want something done, ask a busy person”? Well, that was her. She was reliable, contentious and you knew she’d deliver miracles if you only had the nerve to ask her.
No challenge was too difficult. Needed 200 fairy cakes for an out of two wedding being held within seven days? No problem. She knew just the person. Colour scheme? With hundreds and thousands or without? Oh, and she’d pick them up too on her way to the wedding.
Or there was the way she organised an internship for a friend’s child who needed the experience after university. It was in a competitive field and dozens of people were lining up for the opportunities. She contacted a friend of a friend, etc. etc. and the lucky graduate was in with a chance.
And then there was the time when a friend left her passport at home and she was stuck at the airport with two children, unable to take them on holiday. She rang my client, told her where to get the key to her home and said she had 50 minutes to get to Gatwick. That was a tight squeeze but she made it. Of course she did.
The problem was that, by the time she finally found got round to seeing me, she was all out of puff. She was in a deep fog of lethargy and found she had no energy left to try and work out what to do. She told me – and I got the sense that she felt slightly embarrassed at saying it – that she needed help in working out what to do.
Her initial presentation was straightforward. She was only concerned about the problem and looking for short-term counselling because it was temporarily stalling her lifelong and speedy direction of travel. She was quite happy on that pathway and had no desire to slow down. She was appealing to me for extra coping skills to get a move on.
Sometimes, in such circumstances, I can help with a short-term plan. If a person’s looking for a way to manage a certain project – anxiety with exams, for instance – I can offer some thoughts or exercises to help alleviate the in-the-moment anxiety. Or we can talk through how s/he arrived in this situation when, previously, they’d managed. If it’s a quick fix to a sudden problem that they’re looking for, I’m willing to try.
But when the problem seems to have come to an abrupt halt after decades of coping, I find myself wondering if there’s more to it than what my client might suppose.
The client to whom I’m referring was in her early 50s and was wondering if she was menopausal. She listed such symptoms as brain fog, interrupted sleep and lack of concentration and said they fitted in with what she’d been reading.
Such symptoms fit in with many people’s lives, I pointed out. It could be connected with the menopause, or something complete different. She could consult a doctor to rule things in and to rule things out, which I’d suggest, and/or she could talk to me.
She decided to go for both, and came to me for counselling.
She was, as I’d suspected she might turn out to be, a model client. She was punctual, never late or missing an appointment and always keen to be helpful during our sessions. She offered her own very valuable interpretations and I found myself wanting to agree, for the sake of helping her feel better. That was not an option. That way collusion lies.
My job was, I felt, to see what was driving her to such a level that she could only stop when she appeared to be burned out. Why could she not have pulled back earlier?
Try asking yourself such a question and you’ll see how hard it is to answer. Often, the only way to get to the crux of the matter is for client and therapist to dig and delve together, but slowly and carefully so the conclusion we may come to will be one that the client is happy to consider and work with on a view to altering behaviour. This can take longer than both of us may think.
It was during a session that I would not have thought of as being hugely significant that something my client said seemed to resonate. She was talking about being away at school and a domestic science teacher telling her housemistress that she was “hopeless” at sewing. “Ah,” my client reported her housemistress as saying: “But you haven’t seen her determination.”
Another schoolgirl might have laughed the tale off and said she was hopeless at it then and still hopeless now. Fortunately, she might have said, she had no need of such skills and she was financially able to outsource such works whenever she wanted.
Not so my client. Her face shone with the charm of a 12-year-old as she relayed back to me the delight she felt at having her determination recognised. This interpretation for her meant “persistence, strength of character, fighting the good fight no matter the personal cost to her” and all that might entail). It was a moment that defined and still thrilled her.
Some 40 years on, the reality of taking such a message to heart did indeed mean all those things. It also meant she was coming to see me because all those years of service to others may have taken their toll.
My job was to be curious about the effect the compliment had had on her and to help her reflect on what it might mean to her then, and now. We change and so do our needs. At some stage in our lives we may need to be very determined; at others we may just want to sit back and look around and enjoy the view.
It’s not easy to change habits of a lifetime and it wasn’t in this case, despite my client’s continued determination. There can be lapses but the key, as always, is to be aware of what message you may carry around within from your childhood that you may not need as an adult.
The best work in the counselling room often comes when both client and counsellor gain from their work together. On reflection, I think what I learned was to appreciate the qualities that helped me as a child and to realise that I might not need to hold on to all of them with the dedication I once did.
I can look back with gratitude while saying: “I am an adult. There is no shame in stopping. I have decided I can let this go.”